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In a brazen example of putting ideology ahead of reality, Senate Republicans seem to have pressured the Congressional Research Service to withdraw a report debunking conservative economic orthodoxy. Cutting tax rates at the top appears “to have little or no relation to the size of the economic pie,” the report said. “However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution.” So charging the rich lower tax rates doesn’t promote economic growth; it merely increases economic inequality.

The CRS is a highly respected, independent agency that prepares reports for members of Congress and routinely issues findings that disappoint or even irritate their clients, who usually just grin and bear it, or at least bear it. But Congressional Republicans seem to think that the CRS should function like Pravda.

In recent months, Republicans have been on a paranoid tear. They attacked the private and equally authoritative Tax Policy Center because it bothered to analyze Mitt Romney’s tax plan and found that it’s pretty much impossible to cut taxes by 20 percent without increasing the deficit. And they claimed there was a conspiracy at the Bureau of Labor Statistics when it reported last month that the unemployment rate had dipped below 8 percent.

Don Stewart, a spokesman for the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, said Mr. McConnell and other senators “raised concerns about the methodology and other flaws” in the CRS report. Antonia Ferrier, a spokeswoman for the Senate Finance Committee, said the panel had relayed its objections to the CRS. “We had a good discussion,” she said, “Then it was pulled.”

In case you don’t speak fluent bureaucratese, “good discussion” means that the Republicans made it clear the report had to go. And “it was pulled” means the CRS obeyed. The Times quoted a person with knowledge of the deliberations as saying the decision on Sept. 28 to withdraw the report was “made against the advice of the research service’s economics division” and that the author, Thomas Hungerford, stood by its findings.

Whatever their substantive objections to the report, Senate Republican aides told the Times that they objected to the use of the terms “Bush tax cuts” and “tax cuts for the rich” in the document. While those may not count as strictly academic descriptions, they’re perfectly accurate. Perhaps Republicans expected the CRS to call rich people “job creators”?

3:31 p.m. | Updated
You can read the actual report here.

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The GOP ( or conservatives, at least ) feel that, to break this lunatic cycle, we must cut spending, and allow those who EARN the money in the first place to make it work for them, instead of blindly giving it to the Imperial Federal Govt, which simply uses it to entrench itself ever more deeply into the ground.

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The PROBLEM is that too much of our $ is going to the federal govt, and which takes its cut, and then doles out tiny parcels of that money back to the non producers , via the form of welfare. It's a complete extortion racket, played from the very top of govt, to enslave as many people as possible.

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The rich do pay far more than their fair share. It's not even debatable

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The GOP ( or conservatives, at least ) feel that, to break this lunatic cycle, we must cut spending, and allow those who EARN the money in the first place to make it work for them, instead of blindly giving it to the Imperial Federal Govt, which simply uses it to entrench itself ever more deeply into the ground.

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The US Govt spends ( and wastes ) too much $. OUR $ .

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Because of that, we go into debt. Because of that, the govt claims it needs to take MORE of our money, to pay for the debt it's put us in in the first place, as well as the mounting interest that goes along w/ carrying that much debt.

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Originally posted by kpo: And it was Bush's tax cuts that took the country from surplus to deficit.

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First, there never was a surplus

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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First, there never was a surplus

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On what do you base this assertion?

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How do you define "fair"? On what assumptions do you base this definition?

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Q: During the Clinton administration was the federal budget balanced? Was the federal deficit erased?

A: Yes to both questions, whether you count Social Security or not.


FULL ANSWER

This chart, based on historical figures from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, shows the total deficit or surplus for each fiscal year from 1990 through 2006. Keep in mind that fiscal years begin Oct. 1, so the first year that can be counted as a Clinton year is fiscal 1994. The appropriations bills for fiscal years 1990 through 1993 were signed by Bill Clinton’s predecessor, George H.W. Bush. Fiscal 2002 is the first for which President George W. Bush signed the appropriations bills, and the first to show the effect of his tax cuts.



The Clinton years showed the effects of a large tax increase that Clinton pushed through in his first year, and that Republicans incorrectly claim is the "largest tax increase in history." It fell almost exclusively on upper-income taxpayers. Clinton’s fiscal 1994 budget also contained some spending restraints. An equally if not more powerful influence was the booming economy and huge gains in the stock markets, the so-called dot-com bubble, which brought in hundreds of millions in unanticipated tax revenue from taxes on capital gains and rising salaries.

Clinton’s large budget surpluses also owe much to the Social Security tax on payrolls. Social Security taxes now bring in more than the cost of current benefits, and the "Social Security surplus" makes the total deficit or surplus figures look better than they would if Social Security wasn’t counted. But even if we remove Social Security from the equation, there was a surplus of $1.9 billion in fiscal 1999 and $86.4 billion in fiscal 2000. So any way you count it, the federal budget was balanced and the deficit was erased, if only for a while.

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KPO, you seem to be a "reasonable" conservative.

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What is wrong with downwards redistribution?

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Reagan-
Total debt at start of office $848 billion
Total debt at end $2698 billion
+218%

HW Bush
Start $$2698 billion
End $4188
+55%

Clinton
Start $4188 billion
End $5728
+37%

GWBush
Start $5728 billion
End $10627
+86%

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The question should be whether Clinton's tax policies were more successful than GWBush's in reducing overall debt. There again, Clinton did much better than Reagan, HWBush, and GWBush in reducing overall debt.

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Clinton did better at reducing the rate of growth of indebtedness.

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Originally posted by AURaptor:

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Originally posted by kpo: And it was Bush's tax cuts that took the country from surplus to deficit.

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False. First, there never was a surplus. Second, excessive govt spending put us into a deficit. Both sides in DC work and live in a delusional state, that, no matter what they sign off for today, it'll all be taken care of, down the road, by some one ELSE having to do the heavy lifting.

Won't be them. Not their problem. THEY are too busy doing the people's work, and are busy getting re-elected, to fret over being 5,10,16 TRILLION dollars in the red.

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Originally posted by kpo:

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How do you define "fair"? On what assumptions do you base this definition?

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'Fair' to me would be everyone pays the same for the same goods and services. NB: NOT the same rate - the same *amount*. Anything other than this is redistribution.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Originally posted by 1kiki:
KPO

First you say this

'fair' to me would be everyone pays the same for the same goods and services

then you say this

everyone pays exactly the same.

Which do you mean? B/c it's clear that some people are receiving different types and amounts of services than others.

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Does "fair" include the same tax rates on capital gains and the same payroll tax rates on any income, regardless of amount?

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My benefit from the Iraq War was zero

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I don't know Kwick, in my 'fair' world how much you make doesn't determine your tax amount - it's what you get out in the form of government services. Taxes are simply a transaction for your personal use of roads, schools, the military etc. - most of which which in theory is about the same for everyone, but say if you are rich and send your kid to a private school instead of a state-run school, you get a tax rebate (because you're not using that service). You get what you pay for, and you pay for what you get.

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Originally posted by kpo:
[ Taxes are simply a transaction for your personal use of roads, schools, the military etc. - most of which which in theory is about the same for everyone, but say if you are rich and send your kid to a private school instead of a state-run school, you get a tax rebate (because you're not using that service). You get what you pay for, and you pay for what you get.

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There is such a thing as a "commons". Studies show that even the very wealthy in unequal societies live worse than the moderately wealthy in more even societies.

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The wealthy have gotten more from society. Even when it has been through there own hard work the money they have gotten has come from other, from society.

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Government doesn't make people rich.

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Originally posted by kpo:
I have to quibble with this:

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The wealthy have gotten more from society. Even when it has been through there own hard work the money they have gotten has come from other, from society.

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I think we ought to preserve a distinction here. Government doesn't make people rich. The rich make themselves rich; government's job is to create conditions where that success is possible, and can be maximised. As a liberal I think this opportunity to succeed should be extended to as many people as possible. But I don't like the idea that the rich have a moral duty to 'give back', since nobody 'gave' their wealth to them - they earned it.

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I don't see how the notion of "ownership" came from government, and I think wealth predates banks, bankers, currency and corporations. Even in perfect anarchy there would still be rich people - in fact they'd be the only ones able to afford security, with their own personal police forces. How I imagine it.

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Originally posted by kpo:

I don't know Kwick, in my 'fair' world how much you make doesn't determine your tax amount - it's what you get out in the form of government services. Taxes are simply a transaction for your personal use of roads, schools, the military etc. - most of which which in theory is about the same for everyone, but say if you are rich and send your kid to a private school instead of a state-run school, you get a tax rebate (because you're not using that service). You get what you pay for, and you pay for what you get.

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Originally posted by kpo:

I think we ought to preserve a distinction here. Government doesn't make people rich. The rich make themselves rich; government's job is to create conditions where that success is possible, and can be maximised. As a liberal I think this opportunity to succeed should be extended to as many people as possible. But I don't like the idea that the rich have a moral duty to 'give back', since nobody 'gave' their wealth to them - they earned it.

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Originally posted by Jongsstraw:


He will have spent in eight years nearly as much debt money as all the Presidents in US history before him.

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Originally posted by Kwicko:

Where were you during the Reagan era? Or the Dubya years?

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